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I finally bit the bullet and got myself a real domain name. So long, WordPress domain I registered when I was 19! I’ll miss the subtle reference to Alan Moore’s seminal Superman story, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, but it was time to have a website that was more properly tied to my actual name.

Don’t worry, I’ll still be posting about comic books and science fiction and video game narrative pretty much all the time. New name, same old content.

My Brooklyn neighborhood was lucky. Our lights flickered ominously a few times, but we never lost power. We stayed up half the night watching low quality horror movies, drinking cooking scotch, and listening to the wind whip by. When it was over, my roommates and I went out to look around.

The Gowanus canal was high up on its banks, but no longer overflowing. We walked through the streets and listened to the hum of people pumping polluted water out of their basements. Closer to my apartment, there was no flooding. A few old trees had come down in the wind. There is no place for a tree to fall around here without hitting something. In this case, they tore up asphalt and crushed cars.

Prospect Park is still closed, but I’ve heard that it will take months to repair the damage caused by the storm.

The subways are just starting to run again. By next week, hopefully, we’ll be able to move around freely. This week, though, has been a kind of hyper-local carnival. The Slope is mostly undamaged, but nobody can get to work. Everyone is feeling lucky. The bars are doing brisk business.

This weekend, though, I’ll probably be sticking close to home. I’ll be making soup, editing stories, and gratefully patting the solid brick walls of the building I live in.

I’m hunkered down in my Brooklyn bunker right now, avoiding the overflowing Gowanus canal. So I was very pleased to discover that NANO Fiction decided to make “Mars” their featured story this week. “Mars” will appear in print in next month’s issue of NANO Fiction, so consider this a pleasant preview.

While I’m enjoying my freelance jobs right now, I’m also looking for full-time work, because I’m interested in experiencing the fabled adult land of health insurance and paid vacations. This means that I spend a lot of time sending out carefully written cover letters and resumés and then never hearing anything back.

To vent some of my application woe, I wrote a short mock how-to called “How to Apply for a Job”. (With many apologies to Lorrie Moorie’s excellent, excellent Self-Help.) I thought about posting it here, but then decided to send to to a personal finance site I like just in case they might want it.

Remember when I said that NANO Fiction was going to publish a story of mine? Luckily, they didn’t abruptly change their minds in the subsequent weeks. NANO Fiction Volume 6, Number 1 will be shipping next month. “Mars” will be in it, as will other stories by other wonderful people. If you would like a copy, you can preorder it.

I’m looking forward to receiving my own copy. The cover is absurdly gorgeous, and I can’t wait to stretch out on my couch with a cup of tea and read many sharp bits of small fictions.

In other news, a fine fellow I know created a website that allows you to comfortably ogle at the red planet from the comfort of your favorite chair. It is called The Mars Ogler, and it is very much worth a look.

Fresh off the heels of your successful Kickstarter campaign, we of Unstuckare already thinking about next year’s issue. (Keep an eye out for the voluminous Unstuck #2 this winter.) We’re pleased to announce the open submission periods for Unstuck #3. You may want to consider sending us some of your work. Too literary for the genre markets? Too genre for the literary markets? Unstuck is here to treat you right.

Obviously, spoilers abound. This was written with the assumption that anyone reading this has played through the entire Mass Effect series. Ready? You sure? Then let’s get to it.

This is my Shepard.

She is dark skinned and has a shaved head. She was born in an overcrowded city on Earth. Some time after joining the military, she found herself the sole survivor of a mission on Akuze. The rest of her team was eaten by thresher maws.

In the first Mass Effect game, she didn’t shoot Wrex on Vmire. She saved the Rachni queen, and later sacrificed the Destiny Ascension during a space battle with a entity called Sovereign. She saved the galaxy.

In the second game, she recruited a squad and went on a suicide mission to a collector base. Despite the odds, everybody lived. She saved the galaxy.

In the third game, Shepard cured the krogan genophage. She brokered peace between the quarians and the geth. She killed a reaper with a space laser. Not everybody lived, but most of them did. She is trying to save the galaxy.